


There's no place like home

by Tanaqui



Category: Farscape
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aeryn takes up an offer from John's sister Olivia to learn more about Earth. Set during <em>Terra Firma</em> and written for the prompt: <a href="http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/6407.html?thread=427783#cmt427783">Farscape, John/Aeryn, he needs more than memories of Earth</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's no place like home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Scribbler for the beta.

"So this is where John lived? Before he went into space?" Aeryn cautiously stepped across the threshold.

"Umm, not really." Olivia followed in behind and closed the door. "This is Dad's place. John had his own apartment. The next town over."

"I see." Aeryn was slowly turning, scanning everything in the room. "Oh, you have a tee-vee!" The slight hesitation in her voice and the way she lengthened the word told Olivia that it wasn't one she was very familiar with.

"Uh, yeah. Most people do." Of all the things in the room, it was the one Olivia had least expected Aeryn to fixate on—to the point of crossing over and examining it more closely.

"Can we watch the Cookie Monster? And Kermit?" Aeryn spun around, her expression eager.

"Umm, sure. It's probably on a channel somewhere." Olivia gave a slight shake of the head, trying to reconcile the cool, reserved military pilot she'd met in the IASA hangar just a couple of hours earlier with this suddenly almost childlike woman. Trying to reconcile both with the fact that John was clearly head over heels in love with her: Aeryn wasn't at all what Olivia had thought of as John's usual type.

Aeryn was still looking at her expectantly. Then the eager smile faded to a tight, anxious one. "I'm sorry. You didn't invite me here for that."

"No." Aeryn had expressed an interest in seeing something of Earth beyond the IASA airfield where she and John had landed their ships. Olivia had offered to show her around—accompanied by a security detail, of course; they were waiting outside in a black SUV—and suggested lending her some clothes so she'd blend in better. The copious amounts of black leather both Aeryn and John sported were far from inconspicuous. Olivia added, filled with curiosity, "Is that how John taught you English? From TV?"

"Oh, no." Aeryn was inspecting the rest of the room now. "I only saw tee-vee when I was on Earth before. But it was very helpful to see all your different... stories?"

"Programs?" Olivia suggested, and Aeryn nodded, repeating the word silently to herself. Olivia thought about what Aeryn had just said. "Before?"

Aeryn swung back to face her. "Oh, they probably didn't tell you. But when we were still on the other side of the galaxy, John... went into a wormhole. When he came out of it, he was here, but in the past. And he was much younger. The John on Earth, I mean. And then we had to go into the wormhole again to get back to now."

Olivia wasn't sure she understood much better now Aeryn had explained. She and John had traveled in time? And then traveled in time again? Which would account for why their main ship had arrived several months ahead of them. But no one had known they were here when they were here before? She guessed she should ask John about that; Dad wouldn't tell her anything: _National Security._ Filing the information away, she tried to move the conversation back on to safer ground. "So that was when you saw some television?"

Aeryn nodded. She bit her lip for a moment and then added carefully, "We saw your mother, too. John talked to her. I'm sorry about what happened to her. I think John wanted to change that as well. But he couldn't."

"Yeah." Olivia shrugged one shoulder and confessed, "I think John blames himself more than the rest of us for not noticing. When she got sick, I mean. Dad didn't want to see, but John was over at their place a lot more often than Susan and I were. He thinks...."

"...he should have done more? Yes. That sounds like John."

They were both of them silent for a while, and then Olivia shook herself. "Well, this isn't getting on with finding you some clothes. Don't want to keep the grumpy men with guns waiting too long, do we?"

"No, indeed." Aeryn gave her a tight-lipped smile and gestured for her to lead the way.

oOo

"Do these decorations have a meaning?" They were driving around the suburbs near Dad's house, where the houses were caught in that in-between state where some of them still had their Halloween decorations up and others were already in Christmas mode. Aeryn, peering out of the car window, turned her head to carry on looking at a particularly garish Christmas tableau as they went past. "I don't remember them from before."

"It's the holidays." Olivia guessed unlit illuminated giant santas and life-sized reindeer did look a bit weird. When Aeryn gave her a puzzled look, she added, "We have some important holidays this time of year. People like to put up decorations to celebrate."

Aeryn turned back to inspect the next house as they drove by. "So they don't tell you anything about the people who live in these places?"

"Only that they have no taste?" Olivia rolled her eyes at herself; Aeryn was not going to get Earth-specific sarcasm. To her surprise, Aeryn's face broke into a grin: apparently ostentatious bad taste was a galactic constant.

"And this is where the rich people on your world live?"

"Umm." It was a nice enough suburb, but hardly the kind of gated community where the super-rich lived. "Not the really rich ones. The people here are doing okay, I guess. Professionals, mostly. A lot of them work for the government at the space center." Olivia tilted her head, wondering. "What makes you think they're rich?"

Aeryn shrugged, still watching the passing houses. "They have a lot of space. Each of these homes is for just four, five people, I think? They have time and money to decorate for no reason." She indicated a flickering screen visible through an uncurtained window. "They have tee-vees."

"Yeah, I guess they are pretty well off." Olivia could understand why Aeryn had drawn the conclusion people here were rich. She added, feeling almost defensive, "We have poor neighborhoods, too, but I don't think they'd like me showing you those."

Aeryn gave her a wry look. "No, I don't supposed they would."

"Is it very cramped, living in space?" As the words left Olivia's mouth, she realized her offer to show Aeryn around had been as much about finding out about Aeryn's world—and about what John's life during the past three years had been like—as it had been about satisfying Aeryn's curiosity.

"It's not so bad on Moya. She's a leviathan and she could carry hundreds, and there are only—" Aeryn hesitated for a moment and then continued, "a few of us. When I was still a soldier, we lived very closely together."

"And no TV?" Olivia grinned at her.

"And no tee-vee." Aern returned the smile.

"So you don't have video at all?" Olivia was a bit surprised by that. They had spaceships. Lived on spaceships. Were _born_ on them.

"For security. Surveillance." Aeryn shrugged. "Not to teach or to amuse. Not to tell stories." She made _stories_ sound like they were an aberration, an unfathomable indulgence.

"But you do tell stories?" Olivia pressed the point. "You must have books or plays or... or fairy tales?"

"Fairy tales...?" Aeryn frowned for a brief moment and then her expression cleared. "Oh, I see. You mean—" She made a weird sliding, clicking sound and Olivia realized it must be a word in her own language. "Not really. We have stories from our history, of course, and there are simpler kinds of them—about our heroes and great leaders—for children, but we don't invent things that aren't true in order to amuse ourselves."

Olivia found that a little hard to grasp. Telling stories was what people _did_. She was suddenly more conscious than she had been up until then that, for all Aeryn looked human, she was an alien. Pushing down her uneasiness—was it such a good idea, after all, that John was mixed up with this woman—she asked instead, "So what do you do to amuse yourselves? Play sports? Games?"

Aeryn didn't answer immediately, and then she said slowly, "When I was a soldier, before.... Back then, we often held contests—for particular fighting styles or target shooting with pulse pistols or proficiency in other weapons. And we drank and gambled. And we had planetary simulation areas on our ships where we could test ourselves against the terrain. I would often go rock climbing. Now? Now I'm on Moya, I.... keep myself fit and my skills sharp. And learn English."

"And what about John?" Olivia twisted so she could scrutinize Aeryn more closely. John wasn't one to get bored easily, but it sounded like space was sadly lacking in any of his usual forms of entertainment, like fishing or watching the big game on TV. "What does he do?"

"Chase wormholes." Aeryn's mouth shaped itself into a wry smile. "And he writes. He lets me borrow some of his journals, sometimes, to help me learn English. He writes about Earth. About what it's like. About what he remembers. I feel like I already know his world, your world—" She waved a hand at the passing buildings; they were now driving through downtown. "—and yet there's so much he didn't say. And words aren't the same as seeing."

"No, I guess not." Olivia was a little distracted by the thought of John writing down his memories, describing a world he likely expected he would never see again, perhaps afraid he might forget. Coming back to the present and noticing that Aeryn was once more looking out of the window as they passed a park, she had a sudden inspiration. "We should get some videos. Documentaries. So you can see more of the things John's described. I mean, I'm sure they'll let you visit some different places, but it's a big planet and there's a lot of ground to cover."

"Docu—?" Aeryn did the head tilt and frown that Olivia had seen a few times before, when Aeryn was evidently encountering a new word. It looked to Olivia's eyes like she was somehow running the new word through her translator microbes—could she deliberately turn their functions on and off?—especially as she always seemed to get the meaning of the word a moment later. As on previous occasions, Aeryn's expression cleared afer a second or two. "These are... educational stories? Programs. These documenties?"

"Documentaries." Olivia corrected her automatically but gently. "Yes. There are whole TV channels that show nothing else." Though she'd better keep Aeryn away from the ones with crazy theories about aliens and pyramids. "Nature documentaries would let you see some of our animals and plants. And there are documentaries about, oh, famous buildings and famous people and famous paintings and...."

Aeryn laughed, holding up her hands defensively. "Enough!" She grinned at Olivia. "But if they could arrange it, I'd like that very much."

oOo

Aeryn sat cross-legged on the floor, intently watching a documentary about Australia. She'd told Olivia that John had written about the year he spent testing his Farscape module there, and he'd made it sound very strange. They weren't likely to be able to visit—though, Olivia guessed, Aeryn could have hopped in that space plane of hers and set herself down at Ayers Rock or in front of the Sydney Opera House if she'd chosen to. Except the authorities had asked her to please not—it would only cause a fuss—and she'd respected that.

Part of trying hard to fit in and be accepted, Olivia reckoned. Strangely enough, it was Aeryn out of all the aliens the public seemed to have most difficulty accepting, even though she looked and sounded very human. Perhaps _because_ she looked so human: if aliens could blend in so seamlessly, who could tell who was an alien and who wasn't?

Aeryn was leaning forward, frowning, as she watched the TV. She seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding accents that weren't very like John's—even American ones—which wasn't surprising given all her exposure to English until a few weeks back had been through him. Though Olivia, half listening to the commentary as she pottered around in the kitchen, also found the narrator's Australian accent a little hard to follow at times.

At least Olivia had persuaded Aeryn to sit further away from the screen—the first couple of times, she'd thought Aeryn was practically going to try to climb into the box—though she hadn't managed to get her to use a chair yet. She preferred the floor, she'd said, settling herself on it with enviable litheness. Olivia had caught her one time poking doubtfully at an armchair as if she considered it too soft in every sense of the word.

The documentary ended and Aeryn found the remote and turned off the TV, before beginning to rewind the tape. Olivia brought in the drinks she'd been fixing and handed one to Aeryn. 

"Did you enjoy it?" Olivia nodded at the blank screen. Usually Aeryn liked to talk a little afterwards, confirming she'd understood the vocabulary or looking for clarification of the parts that had confused her.

"Yes." Aeryn sipped her drink. "But I don't know why John found it so strange. I know of several species who raise their young in pouches."

"On our world, it's strange." Olivia sat down and cradled her drink between her hands. Her definition of strange had definitely been extended in the past couple of weeks. Sitting in Dad's lounge drinking tea with an alien woman who might or might not become her sister-in-law some day—though neither Aeryn nor John seemed to know quite what they wanted from each other, as far as she could tell—no longer counted as strange.

Aeryn put her drink down and clasped her hands around one knee. "On your world...." She stopped. Olivia nodded at her encouragingly and after a moment, Aeryn went on, "It's the custom on your world to buy presents for... for those you care about, yes? For this holiday?" She dipped her head in the direction of the tree she'd watched them decorate a few weeks earlier.

Olivia nodded at her again. "Yes. Did you... want to buy John something?" The government was letting their visitors spend freely on pretty much whatever they wanted—although, God knows, they were still getting the best of the bargain with what they were learning—so whatever Aeryn had in mind, it shouldn't be a problem.

Aeryn bit her lower lip anxiously. "Yes. I've been thinking. Once we're back on Moya...." She stumbled a little, lowering her gaze and speaking to her interlinked hands as she went on, correcting herself, "I mean, if John had to be on Moya for several days at a time, for some reason.... If, well, if he was, I thought that if I gave him a TV, he could watch programs about Earth if he missed it. To help him remember."

_So they_ are _leaving._ Olivia had already guessed as much, from a few things John had let slip. From the way he was arguing constantly with Dad about who could have access to the alien technology. From the way he seemed happy to be home and yet like he couldn't wait to leave. Earth was still Earth, but John belonged out there, now.

Olivia smiled sadly at Aeryn and tried to keep the grief out of her voice as she said as cheerfully as she could, "I think he'd like that very much. We'll get him the biggest and the best TV we can. And lots and lots of videos. Films as well as documentaries." 

And she'd drive Bobby out to the lake with his camcorder in a day or two, so he could shoot some film there. John would like that. Something to keep the memories fresh when he was a long, long way from home.


End file.
